Rebellion (Chronicles of Charanthe #1)

by Rachel Cotterill

  Chapter 6

  They were at sea for another month and a half before they sighted land again; a dark strip appeared along the horizon and by borrowing Triangle's telescope Eleanor was able to identify the outlines of many tall spires silhouetted against the sky as they drew closer.

  They sailed into Taraska La'on early the next morning, a light breeze carrying them smoothly into the harbour. Eleanor was the first to jump onto the quay, mooring rope in hand, looking around in amazement. Even the harbour was like nothing she'd ever seen, many of the huge four- and five-masted ships wouldn't even have been able to sail into the shallower waters back at Port Just. And beyond the harbour the city sloped gently into the distance, its rooftops sparkling in the autumn sun – so many tiny pinnacles, pointed spires, and towers topped with bulbous domes of a kind she'd never seen back home. She hurried to loop her rope through one of the heavy iron rings, passed the end back to Sandy aboard the Rose, and waited impatiently for the others to finish.

  Spice somersaulted from the boat, obviously as delighted as anyone to have reached dry land, and jogged over to a small fruit cart parked in the shade of the city wall.

  All Eleanor could remember being told in school was that Taraska was a tiny nation, barely more than a city-state, inhabited by barbaric foreigners who couldn't comprehend Imperial civilisation. No-one had thought to mention just what a city it was! She'd expected to see a poverty-stricken, unsophisticated settlement – not this vast, beautiful metropolis.

  Once the boat was securely moored, John called out to the nearest quayside official and paid for three nights' berth in advance – though what he handed over looked like a couple of glittering gemstones rather than any coin known in the Empire.

  Then he took Eleanor to one side before he went back to the boat. "We'll make all our sales this morning, then restock just before we sail," he said. "You'll help us take the goods up to the market, then we won't need you until we're ready to leave – though you're welcome to sleep on the Rose if you want."

  "Thanks," Eleanor said, thinking she didn't really have any alternative to sleeping on the boat. She had only a few Charanthe dollars – and she didn't know if her money would be accepted in this strange town, outside of the Empire, even if she had wanted to spend it all on a night or two of accommodation.

  They were interrupted when Spice returned, carrying an armful of large, bright orange spheres. He handed them round, and when Eleanor looked at hers in puzzlement he said, "Eat it. It's keeping you healthy after so long sailing."

  She tried to bite into the fruit's waxy skin, and found it not only tough but bitter. The men laughed at her, and she saw that they were all peeling the thick skin away with their fingers, dropping it to the ground and eating the juicy segments inside. She spat out her bitter mouthful and copied them.

  "What are these?" she asked Spice.

  "Blashka," he said. "But men from Charanthe are just calling them orange."

  Mag and Jaws had already disappeared into a nearby tavern, but once they finished their fruit the others were all enlisted to take cloth to the market. John gave Eleanor two rolls of silk to carry, which she hoisted onto her shoulders. Though the weight wasn't much the shape made for an unwieldy burden and she walked awkwardly under the load, struggling to keep her balance as she followed the men into the city.

  The city wall ran parallel to the coastline, and a grand castellated gateway marked the entrance to the city. The crew had to stop in the gate house to have their wares assessed by the smartly uniformed – and very well armed – guards. After exchanging a few stilted words in Magrad, John reached into his pocket for more gems, which he handed over to the officials.

  "What were you paying them for?" Eleanor whispered as they were waved through. Hadn't they already paid for their mooring rights?

  "Taxes," John said. "You can buy and sell anything in Taraska, but the city takes her cut." Seeing Eleanor's troubled expression, he added, "It's worth it though, no doubting that. You can turn a very healthy profit here."

  The broad earth track running into the heart of the city was rutted from the heavy cart traffic it had borne over the years, and Eleanor watched in fascination as a small puff of sandy dust rose into the air beside her feet each time she took another step along the road. The air and the ground were dry – when they moved aside to let an old cart rattle past, clouds of dust filled Eleanor's mouth and lungs, making her cough and choke.

  They followed the road until the market opened up to their right – an area where, instead of stone buildings towering above them, small wooden shacks with brightly coloured canvas canopies stood in crowded and uneven rows.

  "This way," John said, leading the way into the first narrow alley between two rows of market stalls. They walked quickly, taking numerous turns and – Eleanor was sure – doubling back on themselves more than once before John eventually stopped at an empty stand.

  "This'll do," he said, placing down the bundles that he'd been carrying. The men all went to add their loads to the table, and Eleanor followed them.

  "Busy day," Anvil said, glancing around. "Thought we weren't going to find a spot."

  "Busy is good for trade," John said. "Now get out of the way, all of you – we can't make a decent profit if the customers can't get to the stall."

  Eleanor took this as her signal that she was free to explore, and turned back the way they had come. She wandered through the market with no particular plan, just soaking up the strangeness. Voices babbled in a hundred incomprehensible tongues as deals were made and goods exchanged. She'd been too busy concentrating on keeping her footing, while she carried John's cloth, to really look at the other stalls – now, the colourful variety overwhelmed her. In one booth, stacked cages teetered in unstable piles, filled with iguanas and tortoises, sloths and tiny monkeys – creatures Eleanor had only ever seen sketched in books, suddenly alive and caged before her eyes. On the next stall, hundreds of brightly coloured birds fluttered in agitation around a small aviary, and as she watched the stallholder opened a small gate in the side, seized a tiny green bird, and knotted a string around one of its legs before handing it over to a bored shopper.

  She rounded a corner, past heaped crates of colourful fruits and strangely-shaped vegetables – and came upon a sight which stopped her in her tracks. At the next stall were tethered not exotic creatures, but children.

  Eleanor gasped in horror, unable to tear her eyes away. These children were nothing like those who filled the schools back in the Empire; they were ragged and bony, barely recognisable as human, dressed only in scraps of cloth and held from escape by heavy iron manacles. Their wide eyes stared back at her, some filled with terror, others pleading.

  The stallholder, noticing Eleanor's attention, leaned towards her. "Ghor liid? Lam skanda vramasda? You want to buying?"

  "No thank you," she mumbled quickly and hurried on, trying to ignore the eyes which followed her, trying desperately to forget what she'd just seen. How could they possibly allow the sale of children? Yet she couldn't think of any way she could have misinterpreted the man's question. John had said many times that anything could be bought and sold in Taraska, but somehow she just hadn't considered such a horrendous possibility.

  She shook her head sadly and walked on, trying to regain the sense of marvel she'd felt only moments earlier, but she found it hard to concentrate on what she was seeing when her head was filled with the unshakable image of half-starved children.

  After a little more aimless wandering she came upon a stall filled with jars of creams and bottles of strangely-coloured liquids, with bunches of dried herbs hanging from the top of the booth. Some were familiar to Eleanor from school but most were not, and she wondered what they were all for. She spent a few moments examining the various containers – their labels written in a script she didn't recognise – before she decided that she'd managed to find a medic. She wondered whether he would accept her Imperial coins in exchange for a jar of the magic jelly which she'd found s
o useful for her wounds.

  Once the stallholder had finished transacting with another customer, Eleanor edged along the front of the stall towards him.

  "Excuse me," she said, wondering whether the man understood any Charanthe.

  He turned to face her; he had a surprisingly youthful face under his shock of white-grey hair. "Ghor liid?" he asked, gesturing towards the table.

  "Sarakol?" Eleanor asked, hoping she'd remembered the word correctly. There were so many new words.

  "Ahhh, srakol!" He picked up a jar and handed it to her.

  After making a quick inspection of the contents Eleanor nodded, and fished out her purse. "Do you take Charanthe money?" she asked cautiously, holding up one dollar by way of an example, unsure whether the man understood anything she said.

  "Gharanded? Davh, davh." The man nodded, beaming broadly, and reached out to take the coin. He examined it closely, then reached into his pocket for a handful of smaller golden coins. He counted out eight, and dropped the rest back into his pocket. "Bagh iina Gharanded" – he paused mid-sentence and held up Eleanor's dollar again, pocketed it, then began counting the small coins back into Eleanor's hand – "iina, miiz, dagh, ved, maad, ghaad, deg, biila Magrad."

  Before Eleanor had chance to respond, the man then took the jar from her hand and held it up. "Bagh iina," he continued, "dagh Magrad. Dagh." He held up three fingers, then pointed at the small gold coins in Eleanor's hand.

  It suddenly dawned on Eleanor what had just happened. She'd assumed she was getting change from her dollar, but in fact it seemed the man had just exchanged the dollar for an equivalent amount of Magrad coins, and was now expecting her to pay. She picked out three of the small coins and handed them to him, and he passed the jar of jelly back to her with a smile.

  "Davh daan," he said, giving her a half-bow.

  She smiled back at him, hoping to acknowledge whatever he'd just said – she guessed it had to be goodbye or thankyou – then turned and continued her stroll through the market. Iina, miiz, dagh, she repeated to herself as she walked, which was as much of the counting as she'd managed to remember. It was good that she'd met someone so helpful, she thought, for her first attempt at buying something in a foreign country. It was only after she'd walked on past a few more stalls that she realised she had no way of knowing, yet, whether she'd actually been given a fair rate of exchange – her fingers went to the hilt of her knife: he might have been friendly, but if she found out he'd robbed her she'd find her way back.

  With her mind dwelling on violence her attention was drawn to a weaponsmith's stall, which spanned two booths. Alongside the kind of daggers and small swords Eleanor had practised with in her hand-to-hand combat classes at school, hung elegantly curved blades and huge, two-handed longswords. She longed to try one of the longswords for weight, just to see whether she could learn to wield that kind of weapon efficiently, though she wondered vaguely when anyone could ever have use for such an implement beyond the field of battle.

  It was the display of smaller items, though, which really caught her eye. Although throwing stars hadn't been taught at her school, she recognised the principle behind the various sharp-edged discs and stars. She fingered one with caution, noting how much heavier – and, in fact, less sharp – these weapons were compared to the discs she'd fought against in Dashfort.

  Her fingers wandered next to a pair of iron batons, linked at their ends by a heavy metal chain. She ran her hand along the chain, wondering just how this was to be used as a weapon – there was no doubt that was its purpose, given the nature of the stall.

  Moving along the table a little she picked up one of a matched pair of throwing knives and examined the intricately carved handle, assessing the balance as she weighed the knife in the palm of her hand – it was a solid, well-crafted blade, much closer in quality to the knife Laban had given her than those the school had supplied for practice. Tiny blue and white sapphires inlaid in the handle sparkled in the sun.

  "Vramasda vrat olskanda?" the stallholder asked, noticing her attention. His face was dark and pointed like Spice's, and Eleanor guessed he was another native of Taraska.

  "How much?" she asked, thinking it couldn't hurt to at least find out the price.

  "Ahh, Charanthe!" The man nodded his understanding. "I little speaking. Not you Magrana speaking?"

  She shook her head. "Sorry."

  "You will learning," he said, a very certain tone to his voice. "Easier Magrana than Tarasanka. Tarasanka hard for you. It being nice knife, yes?"

  "Very nice," Eleanor agreed, hefting it from one hand to the other. "How much?"

  "For you..." He thought for a moment. "Four of Charanthe coin."

  "Four?" She held up her fingers just to check, and he nodded. She was sorely tempted, but it was almost all the money she had, so she shook her head. "Not today," she said. "Thank you."

  "But it being nice," he insisted.

  "They're lovely," she agreed, placing the knife down carefully alongside its twin. "But not today. Sorry."

  He reached out and clamped her wrist firmly in his hand. "You must being careful," he said, a sudden coldness in his voice. "No place in this city for wasting time."

  He released her arm as suddenly as he had caught it and Eleanor turned sharply away, not wanting to get herself into trouble – particularly when he had such a display of weaponry at his command.

  As she walked on, she realised she was hungry – and, in the dry heat of the city, growing desperately thirsty. She hadn't seen any stalls selling hot food since the edge of the market where they'd first arrived so she headed in the direction of the main road, hoping she'd be able to find her way back without passing the enslaved children again. She was having enough difficulty pushing the image from her mind without needing to see their pleading faces again.

  After negotiating a couple of dead-ends, and being forced by the market's layout to make a couple of turns which went against her instinctive sense of direction, she eventually found herself back on the road.

  Ignoring the tempting aromas drifting from the various food stalls, she went first to a cart selling freshly pressed juice – she didn't recognise the fruit, but it looked a little like an over-large apple, and she was sure it would do the job. It turned out to be more sugary than she would have chosen, but watery enough to satisfy her basic need.

  Her thirst quenched, she picked out a food stall by the length of its queue – she recognised little enough of what any of them were selling, but if this one was busiest then she reasoned it was probably good quality.

  "Tras'o skanda?" the chef asked her as she reached the front of the line.

  Eleanor realised she had three choices – each of which looked like a chaotic medley of vegetables in a different thick sauce. "What's the difference?" she asked, but the chef's blank and impatient look told her that she would get no further speaking Charanthe. Obviously not all the Tarasanka natives had bothered to learn any of the Imperial language.

  Feeling she had no basis for an informed decision, she pointed at the centre pot, which had the most reddish sauce. The chef picked up a sheet of a strange-looking flatbread, rolled it into a cone, and scooped a helping of her selection into the middle. "Bel magrana," he said, holding up two fingers.

  She reached into her purse for the Magrad coins the herbalist had given her and offered two of them to the chef, hoping she'd understood him correctly. He pocketed the money without any further words and handed her the food, moving on to the next customer before she could even attempt to thank him.

  She stepped away from the stall and made her way into the shade of a nearby building before taking a cautious mouthful of whatever it was she'd just bought. The bread had an unusual sponge-like texture, and stretched under Eleanor's teeth as she tried to bite through it; when she did manage to tear a corner away, she found that in addition to the spongy texture the bread also had a sour flavour to it. Though she was grateful to have a change from the limited diet available on the boat, Eleanor
really hoped that for her next meal she could find some food which was more familiar to her. Still, she munched her way hungrily through the whole pocket of bread, which turned out to be filled with vegetables and strips of something which tasted quite like chicken, all smothered in a tangy sauce which left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. The unusual flavours, combined with the mouthful of sand she got each time a cart trundled past, made the experience an unpleasant one and she was glad she had a little juice left to wash out her mouth once she'd finished.

  She headed back into the shade of the market; the day was growing more uncomfortably hot, and at least the canvas canopies offered some protection from the glaring sun. She walked aimlessly and curiously, deliberately slowing her pace to give herself time to glance at the stalls without seeming to look too hard at any one thing – she was mindful of the way the weaponsmith's attitude towards her had suddenly changed the moment she'd tried to leave without buying anything, and she didn't want to attract attention to herself.

  After a short while she passed the stall where she had bought the jelly; the herbalist gave her a friendly nod of recognition as she passed and she smiled back, feeling a little self-conscious. At the next opportunity she took a sharp right turn, determined to avoid passing by the starving children again, and found herself walking along a row of jewellery stalls. The whole area sparkled with gold, silver, and coloured jewels; there were rings and earrings, pendants and brooches, bracelets and hair ornaments... Eleanor found it hard to imagine just how much wealth was amassed on these few tables. Unlike the stand John had taken to sell his cloth, or for that matter most of the traders she'd passed so far, these stalls had an air of refinement to them – silk tablecloths provided a backdrop for the shimmering wares, and brightly painted signs hung from the canopies.

  One particular pendant, a gold oval set with a large black onyx, caught Eleanor's eye but she forced herself to walk on, afraid to even think of how much it would cost. She briefly considered going back and trying to slip it quietly into her pocket, but the thought didn't last long – stealing money for food was one thing, but taking something just because it was pretty would make her feel like an outright criminal. Besides, she wasn't a skilled thief, and she was sure that getting caught would prove more dangerous here than it had been back home.

  She emerged a moment later onto an open road, not quite as wide as the one by which they'd come in to the city, but clearly still an edge of the market. Deciding that this was as good a time as any to explore the rest of the city, Eleanor stepped into the road, and was almost run down by a passing cart as she crossed. She cursed under her breath, and took the next opportunity to turn into a narrower side-street where she felt safer and less exposed.

  She walked for some time between the towering buildings, meandering through the streets and alleyways, climbing the gentle slope of the city. Almost all the walls were built from a stone which looked like it was made out of solid sand – when Eleanor scraped the fingernails of one hand along one of the surfaces, coarse grains came loose under her nails. She kept looking upwards, trying to spot any of the towers which had been visible from the harbour, but from the ground it was hard to get her bearings.

  She tried to be systematic in her wanderings, though she had no particular goals – she thought she'd see more of the city if she tried to walk up and down the streets in some kind of order, but the roads were laid out in irregular patterns, and more than once she found herself for a second time in a square or street which she'd already visited. As she continued to walk, the sun dipped out of sight and the temperature dropped rapidly, a cold breeze ruffling Eleanor's shirt – it had been so hot earlier that she hadn't even thought about wearing a coat.

  She was beginning to shiver, and thinking about turning back to the harbour, when an open door caught her attention. The door itself was wooden, carved with an image of a gigantic coiled snake and set with iron studs. It was the round, high tower into which the door opened, however, which really drew Eleanor's curiosity: she'd found one of the bulbous domes that she'd noticed from the boat.

  She glanced around to make sure there was no-one else in sight, then gave the door a tentative push. It swung silently on its hinges, allowing Eleanor to step inside the tower. A stone staircase spiralled upwards to her left, and to her right was another door, of a similar design to the one she'd just come through. She could see a crack of light around the door, and knelt to peer through the keyhole into the hall beyond. The room was lit by many flaming torches, but there didn't look to be anyone inside. A balcony ran around the hall's perimeter – guessing that the stairs would take her up there, Eleanor turned away from the keyhole and began to climb to a better viewpoint.

  She'd counted eighty-eight steps by the time she came to a door which opened off the stairwell – and still the stairs continued upwards, spiralling above her head. She'd never seen anything like it. Part of her wanted to climb to the top of the tower just to see what the city looked like from such a height, but she thought it might be more sensible to look inside the hall first, while she was sure it was empty, so she opened the door and let herself onto the balcony.

  Looking down over the ornate wooden balustrade – this, too, was carved with intertwined snakes – she took in the room below. The hall was even larger than the Great Hall at Mersioc, and she knew that the school's two thousand inhabitants had all been able to fit in there when they'd needed to. Two rows of carved benches ran around the walls, facing inwards, directly beneath the balcony where she was standing; the balcony itself also made a complete circuit of the hall. She saw other doors at each corner, and wondered if each one led to a similar spiral tower. She'd just begun edging along the balcony to check when she heard bells ringing somewhere out of sight, quickly followed by footsteps echoing from the hall below: people were beginning to fill the benches.

  Instinctively, Eleanor fell to her knees and flattened herself to the floor. She was above the level of the torches, here, so she hoped she could blend into the shadows. Once she was comfortably arranged on her stomach, she edged forwards and peered down between two snake-heads.

  The people filing silently into the hall were dressed in long green robes which reached to the floor, and they had matching green hoods which covered their faces. One, whose green robes were edged with a yellow trim, was carrying a small drum; while the others sat on the benches around the edge of the room he went to the very centre of the hall, drumming as he walked, and sat cross-legged on the floor. Once the benches were full of green-robed people, two others in yellow robes walked down the centre of the room, stepping in time to the rhythm of the drum. They came to a halt by the drummer, and stood facing one another over his head.

  "Ngavra!" pronounced the taller of the two, raising his arms above his head. His voice boomed out, and echoed clearly back again from the rafters, allowing Eleanor to pick out every syllable although she could make no sense of the sounds. "Ngavra srapakastsa skantsa!"

  The second replied, her voice revealing her to be a woman. She mirrored the man's gesture as she spoke.

  The green-robed congregation rose as one to their feet, and sang out in unison. As the drummer continued to beat out his simple rhythm, the yellow-robed woman began to play on a small, high-pitched pipe. Her companion moved across to a large basket which sat beside the drummer, and removed the cloth which was covering it. The anticipation in the room was palpable as he reached into the basket and lifted out a large, live snake.

  Eleanor held her breath, wondering what she was witnessing. She could only guess that it might be a religious ritual; the girls had been warned about the dangerous allure of religion from their earliest days at school.

  The man draped the snake around his neck like a scarf, then began to walk around the perimeter of the room, stroking the snake as he carried it. As he passed, each green-robed individual reached out to touch the head of the snake, murmuring as they did so.

  The man returned to the centre of the room, and the drummer and piper
suddenly fell silent. He lowered the snake back into its basket, where it slithered calmly back into a still coil.

  The yellow-robed couple made another series of pronouncements, and the drummer started beating his rhythm again as everyone in the room began to chant in time: "Ngavra, ngavra, ngavra!"

  The chanting reached a natural crest and then subsided; a few moments of silence followed. The congregation began to move after that, but while a few of them left the hall immediately, many gathered in small bunches for whispered conversations.

  Eleanor waited for as long as she could bear, hoping the room would clear, but some of the little groups showed no sign of breaking apart. Eventually she shuffled on her belly back to the door, and – relieved to have got out unnoticed – continued her climb of the spiral stairs.

  The steps levelled off into a stone floor, creating a round tower-room well above the city. A tall, narrow window let in a shaft of moonlight by which she could see that the room was bare apart from a couple of dangling ropes in the middle and a series of iron bars set into the wall to form a ladder. She moved over to the window and looked out at the peaks of the rooftops below. It was clear from this vantage point that the city's towers were more spread out than she'd imagined from the boat; she wondered, as she admired the view, what the builders had done to make the tops of the spires and cupolas sparkle in the day's last light. Surely it couldn't really be gold.

  She looked up, trying to work out where the ladder would lead, but the tower was too dark. She set one foot cautiously on the bottom bar and tested it for strength; there was no give in the metal so she began to climb, pulling herself up into the darkness. At last she reached the top and stepped off the ladder onto a small wooden platform, whereupon her shoulder collided with something cold and hard. The ringing which followed told her she'd walked into a bell.

  She cursed under her breath, hoping no-one had heard. She was just about to lower herself back down the ladder when she heard voices drifting up from the bottom of the tower; they sounded to be coming closer. She ran her hands along the walls and eventually found a small door; without thinking, she opened it and stepped outside. Luckily there was a narrow ledge running around the edge of the tower, and she found herself just beneath the cupola. She pulled the door closed behind her and flattened herself up against the curved wall at her back, glad that the growing darkness would give her cover from anyone looking up from the street. She began to inch carefully along the ledge, moving around the tower away from the door, not stopping until she thought she'd reached the opposite side.

  Whoever had climbed the stairs to investigate managed to avoid knocking into the bell, but Eleanor heard the door open and froze. If anyone came onto the ledge, her only escape was downwards.

  She heard the door close a moment later, and after waiting a while to be sure no-one was coming Eleanor edged back round to the doorway. She turned the handle, but the door wouldn't open. There was no keyhole – presumably there were some bolts on the other side that she'd simply failed to notice, and she was furious at herself for the elementary mistake.

  Since there seemed to be no other options, she sat down and began to lower herself over the edge, searching for any plausible footholds. With a little difficulty she managed to make her way down from the tower onto the steeply pitched roof of the hall, which she slid down faster than she would have chosen, alarmed at how much noise the slates made as they rattled under her movement. She reached the edge of the roof without stopping and tumbled down into the street, much to the surprise of a beggar who was crouched in a nearby doorway.

  As she dusted herself off and checked for broken bones, he hissed and spat at her from his doorstep. Still feeling generally annoyed, Eleanor spat back before running as quickly as she could back to the boat for the night.

  Her second day in Taraska passed as quickly as the first, in a blur of dry heat and colourful stalls. She tried a different shop for lunch and managed to find herself something a little more palatable, but she still longed for a hearty Charanthe meal. Everything here seemed to come smothered in a thick sauce which made it hard to know what you were getting and less pleasant once you got it.

  As she walked back through the darkened streets that evening, her attention was drawn by strains of music coming from a small tavern. Intrigued by the unfamiliar sounds – it was nothing like the music she'd learnt at school – she pushed the door open. The room was packed, and she found herself unable to move more than two steps inside. A group of four musicians played from a gallery above the throng; the drummer beat out an energetic, erratic rhythm while the others provided the melody on two pipes and a large stringed instrument.

  In the centre of the floor a small space had opened up around a dark-skinned woman with long black hair which whipped behind her as she moved. Eleanor had to stand on tip-toes to see what was happening, and she still only caught glimpses of the woman's movements. From what she could see, the dance was a mixture of fluid swaying movements and occasional acrobatic leaps; as the music sped up, so did the dancer.

  A few moments later, a second woman cartwheeled into the circle. She was shorter than the first and more voluptuous, with short blonde hair spiked up into peaks.

  The onlookers stepped back to make more space for the dance, and Eleanor found herself pushed backwards, crushed up against the people behind her. She strained to see what was going on as the two dancers slowly circled.

  "Vashta! Vashta! Vashta!" the crowd chanted, clapping furiously.

  The blonde woman did an impressive backflip then launched into a series of stamping movements, using her feet to play out a rhythm to rival the drummer.

  The black-haired woman just watched, swaying gently where she stood, until the stamping subsided – then she in turn began to move furiously, tapping with her feet and swirling her arms in a complex pattern.

  Eleanor began to work her way around the edge of the room, trying to get a better view. Another sudden surge of excitement in the crowd pushed her into a young man.

  "Sorry!" she said quickly.

  He looked curiously at her. "Ven Magrad," he muttered, as much to himself as to her, shaking his head. "Ven Darasgad. Valisgad? Gharanded?"

  She guessed he must be wondering about her nationality, so she said, "I'm from the Charanthe Empire." She had to raise her voice to be heard over the frenzied music.

  "See not vashta before," he said. It was barely a question.

  Eleanor shook her head. "What's happening?" she asked.

  "Vashta. Is woman-fight here in Darasga."

  "A fight?" Eleanor asked. It didn't look like any kind of fighting she'd ever seen; the two women weren't even touching.

  "Fight," he confirmed. "Winner take everything."

  Another surge of the crowd separated them again, and Eleanor turned her attention back to the dance. The women took turns at dancing a short sequence each, getting more and more complex turn by turn, until suddenly the crowd stopped chanting and cheering, and began hissing as the blonde woman danced. She redoubled her efforts with extra acrobatics, but the onlookers were unimpressed and eventually she stopped, threw a handful of coins at the floor, and made her way out of the bar.

  The black-haired woman stood smugly with her hands on her hips, still swaying to the music, until another challenger stepped forwards and the whole cycle began again.

  About twenty women had danced by the time the contest came to an end, leaving the final victor to gather up her winnings from the tavern floor – with plenty of help from admiring men in the crowd.

  Eleanor left the tavern in a daze, still humming under her breath, and turned back towards the harbour. She wanted to dance like the women in the circle; every muscle in her body wanted to react to the music. Before she and her classmates had been old enough to begin combat training, dance had been Eleanor's strongest subject and she'd once hoped to work in the theatres. Her childhood joy rekindled by the display she'd just witnessed, she skipped a little as she walked down the street.
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br />   She was just about to emerge from the alley onto the seafront when a heavy object connected with the back of her head and the world faded into blackness.